About Me

Known principally for his weekly political columns and his commentaries on radio and television, Chris Trotter has spent most of his adult life either engaging in or writing about politics. He was the founding editor of The New Zealand Political Review (1992-2005) and in 2007 authored No Left Turn, a political history of New Zealand. Living in Auckland with his wife and daughter, Chris describes himself as an “Old New Zealander” – i.e. someone who remembers what the country was like before Rogernomics. He has created this blog as an archive for his published work and an outlet for his more elegiac musings. It takes its name from Bowalley Road, which runs past the North Otago farm where he spent the first nine years of his life. Enjoy.

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The blogosphere tends to be a very noisy, and all-too-often a very abusive, place. I intend Bowalley Road to be a much quieter, and certainly a more respectful, place.So, if you wish your comments to survive the moderation process, you will have to follow the Bowalley Road Rules.These are based on two very simple principles:Courtesy and Respect.Comments which are defamatory, vituperative, snide or hurtful will be removed, and the commentators responsible permanently banned.Anonymous comments will not be published. Real names are preferred. If this is not possible, however, commentators are asked to use a consistent pseudonym.Comments which are thoughtful, witty, creative and stimulating will be most welcome, becoming a permanent part of the Bowalley Road discourse.However, I do add this warning. If the blog seems in danger of being over-run by the usual far-Right suspects, I reserve the right to simply disable the Comments function, and will keep it that way until the perpetrators find somewhere more appropriate to vent their collective spleen.

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Tuesday, 14 June 2011

Of Dragons & Taniwhas

Guardians For Good Or Ill: The European dragon - like its Maori counterpart, the taniwha - attaches itself to things we treasure ... or fear. The patronising response to the Central Auckland taniwha, Horotiu, reveals just how challenging the linguistic and cosmological metaphors of pre-scientific cultures have become for a great many Pakeha New Zealanders.

HERE BE DRAGONS, wrote the old cartographers when their meagre store of facts about the world was finally exhausted. Here, at the frontiers of human knowledge, only myths, legends and the tall tales of travellers remained to fill up the blank spaces on their maps.

In the oral tradition of the Maori, the word to describe an elemental danger; the threat of the unknown; or that perception of brooding malignity which somehow attaches itself to a place – is taniwha.

It is interesting to compare Oriental and European dragon lore with taniwha lore, for it is immediately apparent that they have a great deal in common.

For the old map-makers the creature was mostly metaphor. “Here be dragons” simply meant, “here be things we know nothing about, but which are potentially extremely dangerous, so travellers should be on their guard.”

In Chinese mythology, the dragon symbolises elemental force: a creature to command air,fire, earth and water. Chinese dragons are wise, and their interventions in the lives of men – be they for good or ill – are decisive. The Year of the Dragon is typically a year of dramatic change.

European dragons, as every reader of C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien knows, are very different creatures. They are more cunning than wise, and if they are decisive it is almost always in a destructive sense.

The European dragon is besotted with riches of all kinds: gold, jewels, costly weapons and armour, magical objects of every description. Gathering them into a mighty hoard, usually deep inside a mountain or underground cavern, the dragon curls its vast bulk around its treasure and loses itself in dark dreams of avarice until, awakened by its insatiable lust for wealth, it slithers forth to wreak havoc upon the world of men.

As brooding, evil presences; keepers of secrets; and guardians of sacred places and/or magical objects; dragons and taniwha would appear to be close relations.

This is especially true of their power to draw to them the most courageous and/or foolhardy representatives of the human world. Whether it be Jason and his Argonauts; the Germanic hero, Siegfried, bathing in the blood of Fafnir; Tolkien’s plucky hobbit, Bilbo Baggins; or C.S. Lewis’ Eustace Scrubb: the hero’s encounter with the dragon is inevitably transformational.

It is no different in Maori mythology: no hero emerges from his or her encounter with the taniwha unscathed – or unchanged.

THE FURORE which erupted around a member of Auckland City’s Maori Advisory Board’s reference to the taniwha, Horotiu, is, perhaps, a measure of how detached we Europeans have become from the myths and legends which define our culture.

The angry denunciations of Maori superstition, and the snide racism that quickly manifested itself on talkback radio, the blogosphere and across the news media, revealed just how challenging the linguistic and cosmological metaphors of pre-scientific cultures have become for so many Pakeha New Zealanders.

Horotiu may guard something precious, or, he may control something dangerous. Whichever it is, the Maori people who lived alongside the stream he personified, clearly regarded him as something or someone you disrespected at your peril.

Engineers seeking the optimum route for Auckland’s underground rail loop should probably do the same. And the Auckland Council – ever anxious to save ratepayers’ funds – has nothing to lose and, potentially, much to gain by tapping the folk-wisdom of those who have lived on the porous volcanic crust of the Auckland isthmus for 700 years.

CELTIC FOLKLORE tells of a king, Vortigern, whose attempts to construct the city of Dinas Emrys were constantly thwarted by violent earthquakes which, every night, brought low his stonemasons’ efforts. It was the wizard, Merlin, who divined that the earthquakes were caused by the mortal struggle of two dragons fighting one another deep below the king’s feet. Only when these dragons ceased their nightly struggles, said Merlin, could the city be built.

Surely, here is a metaphor we New Zealanders could use to our advantage? For isn’t our own civic peace troubled by the fruitless and destructive conflict between the white dragon and his brown taniwha brother? And, wouldn’t the chances of building something fine and enduring here in Aotearoa-New Zealand be greatly improved if we were willing to release these cultural antagonists from the dark cavern of our national psyche and introduce them to the sun?

Who knows? By the light of day the dragon and the taniwha might look a lot less like enemies than they do allies. Or even friends.

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 14 June 2011.

And, wouldn’t the chances of building something fine and enduring here in Aotearoa-New Zealand be greatly improved if we were willing to release these cultural antagonists from the dark cavern of our national psyche and introduce them to the sun?

Too right, and it could be mused that Brash did exactly that in 2004. It might also be mused that John Key's instant and firm "No" to Duncan Garner's question "Do you think Maori get special privileges?" on the night he assumed leadership of the National Party, immediately cast him in the role of the White Knight of fair-minded affability: a role developed and reinforced via the Maori Party relationship.

Who knows? By the light of day the dragon and the taniwha might look a lot less like enemies than they do allies. Or even friends.

Oh they look like friends already. Brash's recent mongering re-hash, and the talkback taniwha bigots, have fallen flat with the public. Dragons, like cats, prefer to avoid each other's claws unless cornered.

But the proof of real friendship is a willingness to share. The crumbs and broken promises rattling like dags in the kete of the Maori Party are stirring the taniwha again. He sees that the White Knight is but a hapless stooge of the rapacious eurodragon, sent to flatter and distract.

And so the circling begins again: until the aged, addled beast succumbs to its obesity and cankers, and finally, in its throes, relinquishes its icy grip on its useless, ill-gotten hoards. A long time ago, but somehow in the not-too-distant future.

I think the treaty partner is a bullshitter. He makethup his culture as it suiteth him. He claims to be a great bloke but if so why was he a slaver. If he has changed was it not in response to the pakeha's culture?

Actually in Europe, public works are sometimes changed because of mythological creatures. In Britain fairly recently, the course of a road was altered because of a'fairy dell'. Over there it's regarded as quaint, quirky and a matter for celebration. But anything Maori attracts opprobrium as a matter of course among some sections of our society – unfortunately.

Developing the infrastructure of the nation on the basis of myths and legends is an approach seldom championed.

When the decisions of Europe were based on this approach it was known as the dark ages. I agree that the cultural antagonists should be released from the "dark cavern" - after all, the enlightenment was based on the rejection of superstition.

The biggest irony of this story is that foundations of the enlightenment stem not from the white skin-tones of Europe but from our brown skinned ancestors of Islam and the Middle East.